ahhhhh.. finally

We had our first beach trip of the year this week while visiting family in Sylvan Lake.

Embroidered Handkercheifs

Check out Kate O'Connor's flickr group of her embroidered handerkerchiefs. They feature her original art along with some funny craigslist ads.

How to Scare Yourself Silly While Home Alone

1) Have a leak in your hot water intake pipe so the basement gets all wet. Spray yourself in the head with the leak to find it. Clean up leak as much as you can.

2) Open all the windows and set a fan on the basement floor to help dry the carpet.

3) Watch a horror movie on the tv while you clean up your bookshelves. Find 3 missing gift certificates ironically tucked into your copy of The Secret Garden.

4) Let it get dark out without you noticing how dark it is, or how windy.

5) Hear a door slam downstairs.

6) Go downstairs and immediately notice that the screen is gone off the basement window. And the door to the spare room is shut. All the other rooms are dark.

7) Investigate!

Carson Pegasus and Miquelon

Forgive me for yammering on about the camping, but I wanted to post some pics here to share with a friend. Here you go, M.

Miquelon- my June 2007 review, so some information is out of date.

It's clear water (salt water), shallow so great for little ones, a huge beach with nice soft sand, picnic tables right on the beach (a ways away from the water though), a big playground near the water, and there are walking trails. They do have campsites but they are not very private and all gravel, which sucks for tenting. They only have one campsite loop open at present as they are still doing renovations (I heard they are booked for the summer anyway).

It's about half an hour or so SE of Edmonton.

Playground near the lake(linked as it's a big photo). You can see the picnic tables behind the playground dotted along the beach.

Clear water!


Walking trail- there are some backcountry trails but it was too mosquito-y when we went. There is also a little store with ice cream and stuff and you can walk along the walking trails to get to it. The park usually has flush toilets and showers but they weren't functional when we went in June.



There are a couple of other small playgrounds amongst the campsites as well. Miquelon is really nice but crazy busy on a weekend, due to it's close proximity to the city. We've never overnight camped there, but it's a nice beach to visit on a weekday when it's not so busy.

Carson Pegasus- these are from 2006

You can see a map of CP here:
http://www.thecampgroundcritic.com/Carson-Pegasus%20Map.htm

One of the playgrounds:



Seawall path:



Lake



Playground on beach



Swim area/beach. It's pretty small but the lake is clear and shallow. Rocky bottom in swim area, not sand.



Tip of the peninsula- you can hike up to the top, through another walk-in area. There is another hiking trail to the right of the map above but when we started on it we saw a sign warning a cougar was in the area, so we turned right around



Looks like people feed the ducks :) I wanted to too but we read a sign that feeding them peope food means they produce fewer eggs and don't gain weight fast enough, etc so I resisted.



Walking trail



Walk-in tenting site right beside the water



The lake is stocked with some kind of fish I can't remember, so there were lots of people boating and fishing. Lots of big rvs, I think I only saw one other tent! There is a store that sells ice cream, some food items, fishing supplies and a few toys.

I really liked the campsite. The service was so-so (the people in the check-in place were semi-rude when I called to book, when we got there she didn't know how far the walk-in sites were from the parking lot as she "had never been up there" and didn't know what the weather forecast was for the next day) but the campsite was clean and well-maintained. We were really happy with our site, as it was far from other campsites but close to the playground, trails and showers/bathroom. It was super-quiet being that it wasn't a weekend and it was only June so that was nice too. It was kind of a bummer to come back to the city and be surrounded by traffic and fast food joints after spending a couple days outdoors in the pretty forest by the lake.

Edited to add: firewood used to be free, but either this year or the last they started charging and it's 6$ a bundle now.

It is about 200 km north of Edmonton, almost all of it on major highway. It is easy to get to. If we didn't stop it would have taken 2.5 hours (half hour to get out of the city, 2 hours to campsite). It took us 4 hours because we stopped for coffee and lunch. Next time we plan to leave right after breakfast and pack sandwiches to eat at the site for lunch when we get there.

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Sadly, the campground critic site is no longer up but I found another link that has people rating alberta campgrounds with comments:

http://www.prairieoutdoors.com/outdoors/camp/albertaparkratings.php

What I'm Reading

Left Hand of Darkness- I've been reading a bit more fantasy stuff of the werewolf and vampire genre and I thought I would maybe give Sci Fi a chance. In the lovely book and movie The Jane Austen Book Club, the lone male member of the book club is a huge Sci Fi fan and gives someone he is interested in a copy of The Left Hand of Darkness to introduce her to Science Fiction. I really liked the Jane Austen Book Club so I thought I would trust the author's taste and give Left Hand of Darkness a shot. So far though, I can only say "mildly interesting". I don't mind reading it, but when I'm not reading it, I'd almost rather find something else to do than return to it.

Sister Noon- I've just started this one, and it's by the author of the Jane Austen Book Club, Karen Joy Fowler. I'm really liking it so far, it's got interesting female lead characters (like JABC).

Excerpt from amazon:

Subtle undercurrents of race and class propel this intriguing novel laden with historic fact and fancy, mystery, voodoo, frontier rough-and-tumble and turn-of-the-century social conventions. The characters rooted in this rich, exotic loam are an unforgettable crop. In 1890s San Francisco, Lizzie Hayes is a 40-year-old spinster, the well-born volunteer treasurer of the Ladies' Relief and Protection Society Home, familiarly called the Brown Ark because of its "shipwrecked, random air, like something the tides had left. In this respect, it matched the fortunes of most of its residents." One day, the notorious, fascinating and possibly dangerous Mrs. Mary Ellen Pleasant arrives at the door of the Brown Ark with a girl, Jenny Ijub, a disturbing and winsome child, perhaps four years old, rumored to be the daughter of a mother buried at sea and an unknown father, though Lizzie suspects he could be rich and thus a valuable resource for the Home. Every character's tale is complicated, unpredictable and often engrossing. Mrs. Pleasant, for instance, is a former slave (or is she?), wealthy as a railroad baron, charitable, a witch and a legendary cook. Still beautiful at 70, she is a purported dealer in underground markets where sex, opium and even murder are for sale. Fowler (Sarah Canary; The Sweetheart Season) moves her principals through time and space seamlessly and gracefully, and exquisitely renders San Francisco as it grows from outpost to city. The temporal shifts and the unreliability of some characters' histories may be temporarily disorienting, but readers who bear with Fowler will be handsomely rewarded.

I am also looking through Taking Charge of Your Fertility, which is really interesting and I'd recommend to anyone who is interested in knowing more about their cycle. For anyone looking for information on birth control or pregnancy it would be really useful as it helps you determine exactly when you are ovulating and when you can expect your menses.

I started reading the Camping with Kids book I described below and had to laugh outloud when I read an excerpt about how the author was asked to write a book about camping with children when she was pregnant. After camping in a tent for 5 day with her 8 month old she said the book would be one word: DON'T. I tented with Blackbird Jr when he was 3 months old in a 2 man tent we had to crawl in and out of (while holding the baby) and he was too little for mosquito spray or suntan lotion. Other cherished memories are sitting in a mosquito tent double pumping breastmilk (part of my daily routine made more special through camping) and fantasizing setting the campsite on fire. So yeah. Don't. Wait until they are older or at minimum, a big enough tent.

Back to the campsite book though, it has some nice reviews of campsites but the ones for Alberta are mostly all larger campsites that are for RV'ers, as the author ended up purchasing an RV to camp with her kids. That made it less relevant for me as a tenter as we prefer the smaller, walk-in tenting sites.

Recent Library Requests

I've got the bug. I really want to get out of the city and into some greenspace.

S is for S'mores: a camping alphabet



This one is "Camping with Kids: The best family campgrounds in BC and Alberta""

Because I can never find one when I need one

bookmarks

Fair Trade Fair Saturday

The 5th annual event as part of TransFair Canada's National Fair Trade Weeks includes an afternoon marketplace with artists, NGOs, unions and vendors selling Fair Trade-certified, sweatshop-free or otherwise ethically-produced clothing, textiles, fashion accessories; soccer and volleyballs; chocolate, coffee, tea, sugar; plenty of arts & crafts; mouth-watering Eritrean (vegetarian) dishes and salads, good vibes, good karma, short videos, an exhibit "Celebrate People's History" Visual Resistance & "Street Art Workers Collective" Poster Exhibit and Feature Films.

Click the image for more information, including feature film descriptions.

My Favourite Craft Sale is On this Weekend!

Spring Stop and Shop! Click the image for more information.

Jelly Racecars Cure Everything! If not, at least they are tasty.

Blackbird Jr has been fighting a fever that appeared last night and is still in action today. Good excuse to make jello racecars, no?

When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided by Race

What I'm reading now: When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided by Race

When She Was White: The True Story of a Family Divided by Race



Synopsis from Barnes & Noble:

During the worst years of official racism in South Africa, the story of one young girl gripped the nation and came to symbolize the injustice, corruption, and arbitrary nature of apartheid. Born in 1955 to a pro-apartheid Afrikaner couple, Sandra Laing was officially registered and raised as a white child. But when she was sent to a boarding school for whites, she was mercilessly persecuted because of her dark skin and frizzy hair. Her parents attributed Sandra’s appearance to an interracial union far back in history; they swore Sandra was their child. Their neighbors, however, thought Mrs. Laing had committed adultery with a black man. The family was shunned. And when Sandra was ten, she was removed from school by the police and reclassified as “coloured.”

As a teenager, Sandra eloped with a black man, and her parents disowned her. The young woman, who had only known the privileged world of the whites, chose to begin again in a poor, rural, all-black township, where life was a desperate, day-to-day struggle against poverty, illness, and a legal system designed to enslave.

I also just finished rereading the Twilight series in pre-movie anticipation and I have to say, as much as I loved reading the series, if you are a human who finds herself in a relationship like Edward and Bellas, SEEK HELP. All romance aside, your boyfriend should not be treating you like an adorable moron and holding you hostage, okay? Some other, more thoughtful, critiques here in an amazon review and here in Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow up to Read Stephenie Meyer.

Great News for Midwifery in Alberta!

It's taken about 25 years of labour pains, but Alberta moms who want to use a midwife during childbirth will soon have the process covered by their provincial health insurance.

Facing questions on the subject from all three parties in the legislature, Health Minister Ron Liepert said midwifery will play an important role in the new prescription for the health system he's charged with unveiling over the next nine months.

"What we want to do is ensure that we integrate midwifery services into our delivery model, that it becomes no cost to the patient. But we want to do that in a way that fits our total health delivery system," said Liepert.

The change of direction will likely shock the midwifery industry, which has had trouble surviving in Alberta, the last province to not cover the service. Other jurisdictions began doing so because years of studies have shown midwife births to be safe and much cheaper to the system than using a doctor.

In fact, former NDP MLA Ray Martin, defeated in the recent provincial election, once commented to Sun Media that he had spent 25 years trying to get it covered.

And it was that type of pressure that brought the issue to the fore again this week. Commenting on Monday being the International Day of the Midwife, Alberta Liberal House Leader Laurie Blakeman seemed aghast that Alberta still didn't cover the procedure.

"We have decreasing capacity in the obstetrics field, we have increased demand with a surge in babies being born, but the government has dithered and studied and fought for almost 20 years, and no core funding for midwifery," she said.

"Let's remember that childbirth is not a disease. It is not poor health. It is a natural process. Most births are uncomplicated and do not require medical intervention."

Rookie NDP MLA Rachel Notley called it a blatantly "two-tiered, only the rich can choose model of health-care services for women and their babies."

That's absurd, said Liepert. "I acknowledge that we need to do a better job of integrating it into the system but unlike our friends in the opposition we're going to do this in an orderly manner, rather than just making a decision on the spot."

You can read the article here.

Twilight Trailer

Twilight in HD


I'll admit it. I'm excited.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is out in November too, so I'm already ready for the holiday movies.

Space Shirts

My lovely friend A sent me some sublime stitching patterns and I put them to good use. The bottom t-shirt was for Blackbird Jr and the top one was for a friend who turned 3 years old. Blackbird Jr has made me promise to make him a yellow rocketship one as well though.





The robot originally had blank eyes and a straight mouth but Blackbird Jr proclaimed it "too scary" so I made him a bit friendlier-looking.

Research shows husbands create an extra seven hours a week of housework for wives.

Original text found here.

Husbands create an extra seven hours a week of housework for wives, according to a new study. But wives save husbands from about an hour of housework a week.

Based on a representative sample of all U.S. families, the study of housework trends was released April 3 by the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor as part of the world's longest running study on income dynamics.

"There's still a significant reallocation of labor that occurs at marriage," says economist Frank Stafford, who directs the study. "Men tend to work more outside the home, while women take on more of the household labor. Certainly there are all kinds of individual differences here, but in general, this is what happens after marriage."

Conducted since 1968 by the university's Institute for Social Research, the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID) is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). It's a long-term, nationally representative study that collects data on the economic, health and social behavior of the same, nearly 8,000 U.S. families year after year.

"The PSID is the only instrument that lets us look at income mobility, people moving in and out of poverty, across three generations," says Dan Newlon, project manager for NSF. "The data allows us to look at the mid- to long-term socioeconomics of household dynamics."

Based on 2005 data, which have been compared to those from national time diaries, the research shows women, of all ages with no children, on average do 10 hours of housework a week before marriage and 17 hours of housework a week after marriage. Men of all ages with no children, on the other hand, do eight hours before marriage and seven hours afterwards.

"The situation gets worse for women when they have children," says Stafford.

Married women with more than three kids recorded an average of about 28 hours of housework a week, while married men with more than three kids logged only about 10 hours of housework a week.

According to the study, housework was defined as "core chores," or routine housework that people generally do not enjoy doing such as washing dishes, laundry, vacuuming floors and dusting.

"Routine housework, like cooking dinner or making beds, was captured in diaries, the primary tool used for the study of time allocation," says Stafford. Researchers supplemented the diaries with data from questionnaires asking both men and women to recall how much time they spent on basic chores in an average week.

Other activities such as home repairs, mowing the lawn, and shoveling snow were not in the study. "Items such as gardening are usually viewed as more enjoyable; the focus here is on core housework," says Stafford.

He says the fact that people generally do not enjoy core housework may explain the reason for so-called 'chore wars' between men and women. It may also explain the long steady decline in total core housework per week accomplished by both sexes.

Overall, U.S. women do considerably less housework today than in 1976, while the amount of housework men do has increased. In 1976, women did an average of 26 hours of housework a week, compared with about 17 hours in 2005. Men did about six hours of housework a week in 1976, compared with about 13 hours in 2005.

Single women, in 2005, who were in their 20s and 30s, did the least housework--about 12 hours a week on average, while married women in their 60s and 70s did the most--about 21 hours a week. The pattern for men was different. Older men did more housework than younger men, but single men did more in all age groups than married men.

"There has been an extraordinary increase in the number of women working outside the home over the last 30 years," says Newlon. "This study shows with men and women working, men still lag women in housework."
-- Bobbie Mixon, National Science Foundation


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A bit flawed, as most Canadians would vehemently deny that snow shoveling is a chore they enjoy, and it doesn't appear to take into account how many hours the wife works out of the home compared to the husband, but still interesting and unsurprising.